Many website hosts out there are using Twitter as a means to support their customers. Due to the fact that sometimes waiting for a support ticket to be dealt with or for a phone call to answered is a pain, Twitter offers a quick and easy way to answer questions quickly and easily. So, the only question web hosts might have now is how can you use Twitter as a platform for customer service?
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What is Twitter?
First, let me cover the basics and tell you what Twitter is all about. Twitter is an online social networking service that allows users to send and red text-based posts that are up to 140 characters. You can sign up for an account on Twitter.com and then follow people or brand names you like to get updates from or post your own questions, comments or anything else that might tickle your fancy.
Now that you know what Twitter is about, let us get back to covering it as a customer service tool.
Be aware of the fact that not every question or situation can be answered on Twitter. Here are some situations where Twitter does come in handy:
- Basic Sales Questions
- Server Outage Notifications
- Very Basic Support Questions
- General News or Links About Your Business
As you can see from my examples, you can not really afford to spend too much time on one single topic. More complicated situations or answers should still be pushed to other forms of support (such as a help desk ticket, live chat, etc.). There is only so much information you can share in 140 characters – so make every word count.
Tracking the Conversation
Twitter is also a great way to track what people are saying about you. Marketing gurus would put this as, “tracking the conversation about your brand” or something to that effect. You should track all the possible keywords that are related to your brand, such as your company name, any special names you have for your services and anything else that might be unique to you. There are many tools you can use to get this done – so go out and have a look.
Once you notice that people are talking about you on Twitter, you can use the service to reply back to them. For example, if somebody says:
“These guys totally suck, don’t host with them!”
You might want to reply back and ask:
“Sorry to hear you feel that way @randomtwitterguy. Could you let me know what the problem is?”
This will hopefully open up communications between yourself and the angry customer, so that you can find out what is really bugging them. You can also reply to any other statements or questions about what it is you do. Make your replies personal, to the point and public relations friendly.
Share Your Twitter Account with Your Customers
You know the old saying about a tree falling in the woods, right? Well, if you have a Twitter account for your web hosting company and nobody knows about it, does it really exist? Well, yes – it does but nobody cares if you fail to inform your customers about it. Make sure you post your Twitter account on your website, forums, newsletters and anywhere else your clients might see it. Not everybody is a big fan of Twitter – but you should be able to get the attention of those users who use this micro-blogging service as a part of their day to day lives.
I can understand using Twitter to track conversation, but not customer service. How could someone describe a problem in 140 characters?
We host over 1000 Magento stores and it would be a nightmare to do customer support through Twitter. Trying to track which customer is which would be very time consuming. A basic ticket system is best. Everything is easy to track and archive. Twitter is in no way meant for customer support. It is more for quick messages to a large group of people.